Discovering Memories with a Click: The Evolution of GOOGLE PHOTOS

Google has been pioneering digital experience for nearly a quarter-century now, and Google Photos has gone through myriad changes and tweaks over the years. It continues to set the bar for how we can store, search for, and relive our memories. And in this latest instalment of photo history, we’ll be walking through some relatively recent changes to the user experience, especially surrounding the ‘Things’ carousel, and looking at the new Ask Photos feature. Globally, more than ever, we rely on Google to be an indispensable part of our digital experience.

A Farewell to the "Things" Carousel

Google Photos has suddenly deleted the ‘Things’ carousel from the Search tab on Android and iOS. It used to live between People ＆ pets and Places, near Documents – an alternative way of grouping things: Skylines, Concerts ＆ music, Forests ＆ trees, Food ＆ drinks… it was an amazing set of categories, and like many procrastinators and photo-scroll-enthusiasts, I spent many hours perusing the passing tables of macro photographs and temple closeups.

That stability, however, does mean that users can’t find the same ‘Things’ carousel in the same place any more. The magic of Google means the photos are still there, in fact you can still view them by typing ‘Things’ into the app. But, although the destination is the same, you have to take a different route to reach it.

Navigating the New Landscape

This is probably a move towards fewer buttons in the app: removing the ‘Things’ carousel has opened up the Search tab, which now is just Your Activity and fairly general Categories. It looks like a step towards a more minimal interface – maybe a sign of things to come when Ask Photos finally arrives. Even if the ‘Things’ section isn’t currently there, this update offers a glimpse of a future in which Google wants you to search in ways that are less text-based and more interactive within Google Photos.

The Dawn of Ask Photos

Ask Photos will launch this summer, bringing a conversational query-based approach to our digital albums – a world away from browsing. While not every feature demoed at I/O 2024 will launch when expected, we’re seeing a far more conversational approach to interacting with our photos – not just finding them, but talking with them, in a way that feels more natural and like the way we think and remember.

Magic Editor's Wider Rollout

Besides the search features, Google has already announced plans to expand the new Magic Editor tool, which was introduced with the recently released Pixel 8 phones, to older models of Google phones. This is the kind of tool that should make you proud to be a Google user.

Streamlining Storage Management

The latest USP for Google Photos is the improved user experience: it now offers various ways to control available storage, including the option of identifying those images ‘Not eligible for Storage saver’.

Embracing the Future with Google

And as we start to experience them with it, and future iterations like Ask Photos, we’re seeing the first outline of the picture Google would like to paint for Google Photos. That picture is a living, limber, ever-changing archive that not only stoves your photographs, but is skeletal, easy and fun to interact with.

Google: Pioneering Digital Innovation

Fundamentally, it has been a force for digital disruption, transforming the way we use technology. From its origins as a web search company to the multipurpose ecosystem it has become, Google’s evolution encapsulates the quest for making the world’s information universally accessible and useful.

And Google Photos is a mission-driven manifestation of that goal. With each added daily tool, Google ensures that its stored photographs are less about lasting our digital logbook and more about cherishing and re-experiencing our memories in the most effortless way imaginable. Whatever searching, editing, or querying you want to undertake on your photo portfolio, Google will be there to help you excavate and render your memories in the same clean, efficient way it’s known for.

So, the disappearance of the ‘Things’ carousel in Google Photos is a small and almost invisible change, but it signals towards broader strategy that could bring more intuitive and interactively designed experiences to users everywhere on all sorts of devices. Google has a long way to keep evolving. As the old company adage holds: ‘Keep the main thing the main thing.’ The main thing, in this case, are Google’s efforts to better support the way we connect with our memories and the connections to others – regardless of what device or service we use.